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I've recently encountered a growing church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that has developed a new type of doctrine to lead people to salvation. Without going into too much detail of what they believe (which would blow your mind if you heard it), the main idea is that they believe the Bible points to the existence of an entity other than Christ that gives people salvation. They also claim that salvation has not been possible until the recent discovery of this entity- even with the death of Jesus to lead the way. As odd as this is, it hasn’t been the first time I’ve encountered a group who believes that salvation is only possible with new found knowledge and doctrine.
The only problem I have with these new discoveries- other than the fact that I believe they are totally false- is that they perpetuate the idea that Christianity is indoctrination. That we are saved because of how much we know about the Bible, or because of how deep we can go into scripture. And they make the world believe that Christianity is merely a style of religious instructions. But I have to shut this down once and for all, not only for the new-doctrine churches, but even for a lot of our existing traditional churches, that salvation is not a doctrine, it is a need! (This article is not what you think it's about... Keep reading)
If God loves us as much as the Bible claims He does (John 3:16), then it doesn’t make sense that He would risk us missing our chance for salvation by putting the key to it at the end of a labyrinth of mazes. “You can only get saved by solving my riddles.” That is not a sign of someone who is desperately trying to fix our problem, but rather someone who is just toying with us. No more than it would make sense that if I was really trying to feed homeless people, to tell them “You can only get this sandwich if you solve this Rubik’s cube.” Therefore, "spiritual mysteries" do not bring us closer to God. Yes, it’s true that Jesus spoke in parables, but only when deepening people’s understanding of life and God, never about salvation! In fact, Jesus spoke very clearly when it came to salvation (John 14:6). Jesus’ very problem with the Pharisees was that they were making it too difficult for people to get to God (Matt 23:14). Salvation is a need, meaning if we don’t get it, we’re in trouble! But the question is: what makes salvation a need?
Many people would say, “Because otherwise, we will be eternally separated from God.” While this is true, it’s not quite right. Our desire for eternal life is not what makes salvation a need. If that were the case, we would be the objects of our own faith (I serve God so I can live forever). You have to understand that nowhere in scripture are we commanded to love ourselves. Nowhere…
The first two commandments tell us to Love God, and love our neighbors. But we need so little help loving ourselves that God never commands us to do it, but only uses our love for ourselves as a template of how we should love others (Matt 19:19). In fact, the Bible actually shines a potentially negative light on loving yourself (2 Tim 3:2). Since we are not commanded to love ourselves, why would the main purpose of salvation center on us loving ourselves? It doesn’t. The first commandment is “Love the Lord thy God.” Which means our need for salvation has to do with the breaking of that commandment. On a side note, this is why scare tactics of 'Hell without Jesus,' while true, are not really effective for change. Because it leads to people turning to Christ only to save themselves which doesn’t fix the problem. Their relationship with God then becomes treating God like a genie, here to grant wishes.
The thing that makes salvation a need is the true travesty of sin, and the true travesty of sin is that sin is not disobeying God, it’s disregarding God. If you don’t know the difference, I will explain.
The Bible describes God’s being three different ways: That He is Omnipresent (everywhere at once), Omniscient (all knowing), and Omnipotent (all powerful). David says in the book of Psalms, “Where can I go from Your spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I soar to the heavens, or make my bed in Hell, You are there (Pslm 139: 7).” By default, due to His character, He is always everywhere! This is the true travesty of sin. If the Bible says that God is always present with us, always standing by each individual’s side, this means that to sin is to be totally unmoved or unaffected by His presence. In other words, you don’t care. My five-year-old daughter sneaks food out of the kitchen when she thinks my wife and I aren’t looking- that’s disobedience. But imagine if she deliberately grabbed the food while I was staring right at her, that’s disregard! That says “Dad, I have no fear of you, or respect. Therefore I will do this while you’re looking because your presence doesn’t move me.” And if God is omnipresent, with us all the time, then this is the perpetual message of our sin.
Our problem is our failure to acknowledge Him, even with those of us who already believe but serve in tradition. Performing tradtional service doesn't mean we live like He is always right beside us. This is why we need salvation, and why salvation can’t be doctrine. We need salvation because our total disregard for God has broken His Heart and has caused us to be blind to spirit. If God is standing beside us all the time, then for us not to be able to see Him shows that we were tossed out of a dimension of being able to interact with something right in front of us! And salvation can’t be doctrine, because if sin is the breaking of God’s heart, wouldn’t He want that to stop as quickly as possible? If my wife was cheating on me, I would want her to stop immediately! Not after she established a philosophy about cheating!
It’s important that we don’t focus too much on the concept of eternal life (did I say that?), because eternal life is a result of being reconnected with God. The reason we are dead is because we disconnected our umbilical cord of life from Him and said we can find life elsewhere. Once we are reconnected to God by having our sins washed by the Blood of Jesus Christ, simply being reconnected to God will give us eternal life. But to stay connected with God and to experience His power and life on a whole new level, we have to Love Him, and you can’t love someone you don’t acknowledge to be present. Just acknowledging that He is always beside you will change your daily approach to life, and give your relationship with Him new meaning.
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God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
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